Page 76 of A Sky Painted Gold

I turn and stumble up the stairs, heading for my bedroom. Once I am safely inside I carefully hang up my beautiful green dress, trailing my fingers over the shimmering beads, the golden thread. It is then that I realize that I am still wearing Robert’s coat. I brush the top of one of the sleeves, admiring the soft material. The front of the jacket is covered in elegant black frogging. I frown, looking at it more closely. I have seen this coat somewhere before.

I feel something dawning on me, a realization that is slowly, slowly making its way into my fuddled mind… This coat is just like Charlie’s. I remember, very clearly indeed, the feel of this braiding beneath my fingers when we kissed. But why would Robert have Charlie’s coat? The answer, of course, is that he wouldn’t. I saw Charlie, wearing his coat, before I went down to the beach, and it certainly wouldn’t have been at a convenient moment for Robert to ask to borrow it. This is Robert’s costume, then, my brain finally concludes. Robert and Charlie have the same costume.

I freeze, a shiver running through me. With trembling hands, I reach into the jacket pockets and feel my fingers brush against a piece of soft, silky material. I can feel my pulse trapped at the base of my throat, beating insistently like the wings of a caged bird. Slowly, slowly, I pull the silk object out of my pocket and hold it in my hand. I know with absolute certainty what it will be, but the sight of it there, in front of me, still takes my breath away.

It is a black domino mask.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

The next morning, I am feeling even more confused after a restless night full of dreams of masks and kisses and swirling faces with green eyes. It seems impossible to separate the dreams from the reality after such a strange evening. My stomach is in knots and my head is pounding. Robert… I kissed Robert last night. And that kiss is playing on an endless loop in my brain. I know that it shouldn’t have happened, but now that it has, the memory of it is too searing and wonderful not to revisit. I lift a hand to my lips, remembering the feel of his mouth on mine. I think about repeating the kiss again and again, a million times more. Of curling my fingers into his dark hair, of pulling him against me.

Knowing that I have shared such a kiss with Robert should feel like a shock, but instead it feels right in a way that scares me even more. None of this changes anything. Robert is not mine. Robert is getting married. Robert is marrying Laurie.

But what about Laurie and Elodie? What did I interrupt there? Is Laurie in love with someone else? And Robert might have kissed me but it really wasn’t his fault; after all, I did literally throw myself at him. There wasn’t a lot of time to protest as my lips smashed into his. I groan, waves of mortification rolling over me. Only, a voice in my head whispers, a wicked little voice that won’t be quiet, he didn’t push you away. He didn’t have to kiss you back. But he did.

I groan again, balling my fists and slamming them ineffectually against the white bed sheets. I am just lying here going round and round in circles, much like the ceiling above my bed. There is nothing for it but to get up and face the music.

I drag myself from bed and go to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water, dismayed by the pale, drawn face looking back at me in the mirror. Eventually I manage to dress and stagger down to the dining room. Pushing the door open, I find Robert sitting at the table, alone. He gets to his feet and we stand staring at each other in silence. His eyes are careful, wary. I hold out my hand and the black mask unfurls from where I have been clutching it. His eyes meet mine and I see that he understands. That I know. He takes half a step forward, and his mouth opens to say something when Laurie appears behind me in a floral kimono dressing gown.

“Coffee!” she croaks, slumping into a chair. “Need coffee. Right now.”

I shoot a desperate glance at Robert, stuffing the mask back into my pocket, but he has turned his attention to pouring coffee for Laurie. The pot is empty.

“Perkins,” Robert calls, but the butler fails to materialize. “I’ll grab it myself,” Robert says quickly, taking in the air of desperation that is hanging around Laurie. He disappears from the room.

“I think I might have given you a shock last night,” Laurie says now, turning to me with her eyebrows raised.

“Oh.” I jump. “No … not really,” I say awkwardly. She continues to look at me. “Well, maybe a little,” I admit. “So you and Elodie are…” I hesitate here.

“Lovers.” Laurie nods. She says it plainly, without emotion, as if she is commenting on the weather.

“I see,” I say, dropping into a seat beside her.

Laurie laughs and takes my hand, squeezing it gently. “Poor Lou,” she says. “I forget that anyone can find anything shocking these days.”

“What … um, what about Robert?” I ask as casually as I can. “Aren’t you in love with him?”

“In love with Robert?” Laurie frowns. “No more than he is with me.” She says this lightly, as though it is not something terribly important. “Anyway, he doesn’t mind,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “Although he might tell me to be a bit more discreet than I was last night. It was those green cocktails, deadly things, had me throwing caution to the wind!”

“Robert knows that you … er…” I trail off, confused.

“That I enjoy the company of other people?” Laurie gives a throaty chuckle. “Sure he does. He and I are honest with each other. I have a great deal of respect for that man, and God knows marriages have been built on much less.”

I am quiet for a moment, trying to absorb this. I knew that Laurie didn’t exactly have a conventional view of marriage, but it hadn’t occurred to me that she might not love him.

“Does Robert have his own…” I trail off again, too mortified to continue.

Laurie looks at me through narrowed eyes. “That,” she says carefully, “is something you’ll have to take up with him.”

A feeling of intense nausea rolls over me. Perhaps this is it; perhaps this is why Robert kissed me back. Because he wanted to, because it meant so little, because who is about to be shocked by a little kissing between friends?

“I don’t understand,” I say, and my voice is tight as I hold back tears. “Why bother getting married at all?”

Laurie shifts a little in her seat. “That, if you don’t mind me saying so, Lou, is a pretty naive question.”

“Is it?” I ask weakly.